The family of Kayla Mueller, an American woman held captive by the Islamist terror group ISIS, said Tuesday that it has received confirmation that she is dead. Mueller's relatives on Tuesday released a handwritten letter that they say she wrote while in captivity in spring 2014.

A pre-trial hearing for the defendants accused of being a part of the attacks of September 11, 2001 came to a halt after one of the defendants objected to the presence of a courtroom interpreter the defendant said worked in a former secret CIA-run "black site" prison.

The horror stories seem to stack up every winter: Students sliding and stomping through knee-deep snow on their walks to school, trapped inside school buses or nestling in for a surprise slumber party in the school gym.

Boston is in the cross hairs again, but winter storm warnings are in place across large portions of the Northeast, including Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.